English Kanji
by wjames260
Summary: RurixShuu. Written a few years ago, prior to the end of the manga. Takes place in their final year of high school, over the course of a week or so. Shuu and Ruri are left in Bonyari while the others have gone back to the place they met as kids. They are alone together, in the last week or so of school, preparing for college, trying to grapple with the concept of that end of things.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm not really sure how to proceed," she says to herself. The classroom is empty except for her and the blank notebook page in front of her. Sighing, she sets down her pen and twists the metal spiral with her small, pruned fingers. Leaning back in the chair, she swipes her bangs off her forehead and looks around the classroom.

There is the blackboard, faded remnants of formulas and equations, streaks of drying wiper-fluid, some student's hand-print in the chalk dust. There is the teacher's desk with the white stacks of printer paper, the still humming computer monitor, the novelty coffee mugs stuffed tight with pens and pencils. Behind the desk is a browning fern in a pot on a tabletop with a printer below it. Next to that is a set of file cabinets with unmarked identification cards and cluttered magnets

Pasted on the magnets are photos of past students caught in frozen smiles and waves. Most of the photos are contrived: the student wearing their school uniform while standing, crouching, or leaning in the lee of a gnarled oak tree or near a tennis net or an open locker, holding a textbook or baseball bat or guitar at an awkward angle. Results of photo shoots in their third year, a spare weekend afternoon amidst the mess of studying - cram school, midterms and finals, entrance exams - and hanging out with high school friends.

That thought pricks at her.

High school friends.

The phrase implies an end.

Among her peers, she notices a sense of desperation. Everyone scrambling to be with each-other, third year girls clinging to one another in the hallways, swim team seniors going out for coffee or a study session after every practice. When they invite her, they'll sometimes grasp her wrists and make their eyes all dewy and large while calling her by some cutesy nickname. Sometimes they'll ask in passing, as their group scuttles out the locker room, chattering and waving behind their backs. Sometimes one of them will approach her in the water, touch her shoulder or snap her swimsuit before smiling sweetly and cocking her head.

Knowing she'll always decline, they always invite her. Not that they don't like her, or that she doesn't like them. They are just different. Before graduation, they prefer to spend as much time together as they can, and she prefers to go to an empty classroom to study and write. They prefer to escort each-other to the train or find boys to carry their books. She prefers to walk home by herself, escorted by a can of mace. No matter how late it is, she takes a certain, simple pride in being unafraid of walking alone and in carrying all her books in her own, small arms.

Looking back to the notebook, she picks up her pen and is surprised how light it feels, as if she expected it to be too heavy to raise. She writes in English. The sentences are blocky and slow and written in the passive voice. There is a surplus of adjectives and adverbs, some of them made up. There are misused idioms and sometimes the verb forms get confused. But, she's doing it.

There is something about the English language that opposes the Japanese language, but she doesn't understand what it is. Maybe it's the sounds of English, the way it feels in her mouth, the shapes her tongue must make. When she speaks English, it feels like her mouth is full of marbles, of as if she's biting down on a cork or like her tongue is a wooden block. Or, maybe it's how strict, but not sometimes not strict, the rules of English are and yet so random and nuanced with so many words having several different meanings. Perhaps it's because English has just the one written form while Japanese has two.

Sometimes, she wonders what English kanji would look like. In the solitude of her bedroom, she's tried to create them. Always it feels stale because it's useless. A single, English kanji.

She writes a little harder, the nub cutting a little deeper, the ink a littler darker. English so opposes Japanese because of the history. She still remembers being ten and listening to her great-grandfather, in a moment of uncharacteristic seriousness, describe the mushroom cloud. How it hung in the sky all day. How he and his fiancé sat on a grassy knoll outside their home, just beneath a ginkgo tree, and watched it together without realizing what it meant.

The next day there was another. The first was just dissipating when the second appeared. First, there was a soundlessness, then a bright flash followed by a sort of boom deep within his ears. It rang in his head, pulsing, vibrating, when it calmed down he could see again. He watched how the leviathan ballooned, bloated, quivered, wobbled, and seemingly went still, as if painted there between the land and the sky. A few moments later, he and his fiancé were hit by a gust of hot wind smelling of ash and chemical, they were blown backwards several meters, and rolled down the knoll to the bank of a nearby stream. The water was warm, despite it being winter, and it's surface reflected the ash in the sky and the vibrant white colors of the far-off explosion.

By then, he knew what it meant, and even decades past, he couldn't quite grasp it. In that small frame of time, all those people evaporated leaving behind only their shadows. In that small frame of time, an entire countryside was turned to dust, and the dust was scattered in the wind, and the wind blew far, out towards the seas surrounding their island. It was as if a western, english-speaking god had spit upon their land, and the emperor was nothing to it.

Everybody knew somebody who died in the blasts or was injured by the aftershocks or would be effected by the radiation, which was almost scarier that the bombs themselves because, unlike the mushroom cloud, the radiation was invisible. Generations later, it lingers still in the soil and the water and the bodies of children.

Not to mention the fire-bombings. Before the war, this was an island composed of wood.

She shivers, breathes in.

"Of course English feels opposed to Japanese," she says, her voice small and quiet, almost transparent. Staring at the half-finished sentence in the half-finished paragraph, she sets down her pen and it sits there on the note-paper, limp and still, unusable.

Her handwriting is tiny, uniform, neat, but the sentence itself is awkward, stumbling, stuttering. An English-speaking sentence written by a Japanese hand. An English-speaking book read by a Japanese girl. An English-speaking friend, an English-speaking cell phone, an English-speaking restaurant chain.

Leaning back in the chair, balancing on the hind legs, she stares out the windows lining the wall of the classroom. There is the empty baseball yard with the sandy, almost orange infield, the white bases and pitcher's mound, the backstop fence, the dugouts with their seed-shell scattered benches.

Past that, is a small woods encasing a small lake. The tops of the trees look like an odd, curly head as it sits against the washed out blue of the sky. And, there is the sun, peering down like a white, blinding buzz-saw. Behind her, a voice calls out. She does not flinch. She just watches the sun-haze, the way it lingers in the wall of windows, glaring in and exposing all the dust in the air.

"Whatever do you mean, Ruri-ruri?" he says, something similar to glee in his voice, "You writing a love letter, is it a love letter!?"

She does not turn around, but she can see his vague reflection in the window. Just the form of him, the shape of him, his height and his posture. And, she can hear him. His voice curls at the ends, his inflections bound up and down with ceaseless, possibly hormonal, energy. But, inside that energy, there is a watchful quite. He observes her.

It's tiring to listen to him speak. And, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's the opposite. And that dichotomy itself is tiring. Closing her eyes, she rubs her forehead and swivels around.

"When did you get here?" she asks. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the door-frame, his arms folded, one knee pointed out. His characteristic sheep's-grin sits on his face like clothing, like something he put on in the morning.

"I don't think Japanese and English are so opposed," he says, pushing himself off the doorframe and stepping towards her, stopping as he sees her expression tense, "Don't let Kirisaki hear that, at least."

"Right," she says, looking back to the notebook, feeling him watching her, and feeling herself watching him. In her periphery, he leans back against the doorframe.

His body is lanky, his shoulders are wide. His hair is thick and sometimes looks already grey, depending on the lighting. He reminds her of a satyr, and she almost chuckles at the idea of cloven feet in his shoes and little horns hidden beneath that hair.

She compares herself against him.

Back in middle school, boys would pick her up just because they could. They'd lift her into the air and run around, and she would just wait for them to get bored. She'd stare off into the distance and sometimes just keep reading unless they took her book away. If she ignored it long enough, they would leave.

But, this doesn't work on Shuu. No matter how much she ignores him, he doesn't leave. He doesn't take her book either, and he doesn't lift her or touch her. He talks too much and makes lewd jokes, but he never touches her, there's a certain personal space he does not broach. Maybe there's an honor in that. In fact, only she broaches it. She frowns.

Glancing back at him, she sees that smile again, that shift in his gaze, the way the dipping sunlight reflects off his glasses. She decides that's worse than just taking her books or lifting her into the air.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, feeling like she's playing a role in a game. A part of her even enjoys it. She can fall into the rhythm of their interactions and be at ease there.

"Well," he starts, and she sighs audibly, "I was just finishing my classroom duties for the day, and happened upon a troop of sexy ladies with wet hair. I could faintly see the outlines of their bras beneath their school shirts. Like you, Ruri, they smelled of chlorine. And so, upon offering my personal cleaning servi-"

"Just stop," she interrupts, holding up a hand, "Fine. I don't need anyone to walk me home."

"Obviously, obviously," he says, waving his hand and holding the other to his chest while laughing a hearty, contrived laugh.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asks, resting her cheek on her fist, her elbow on the notebook, the English language receding to the back of her mind. She hates that too, that way he subverts all her contemplations and makes himself the center of things.

He just looks at her.

Folding up her notebook, she sighs again but knows he knows it was forced. Standing from the chair, she slings her carrier bag around her torso and lifts the flap, placing the notebook inside. The bag is heavy, full of textbooks and binders. It bulges like an odd rock against her small body, and when she walks it bangs against her waist. Everyday she rubs ointment on the bruise it leaves. This is also an act of pride, not just of academic pride, but of something more inherent and important.

"Don't forget your pen," Shuu says, smiling. Saying nothing in response, she grabs the pen off the desk-top and tosses it into a small nook in the corner of the bag. Setting off, she passes him into the hallway. A moment later, he jumps off the door-frame and catches up.


	2. Chapter 2

They walk together in a simple silence. Several blocks ahead, past street-lights and pedestrians and the tail-lights of cars, she sees the train platform and watches as a train lurches and starts, pulling away from the station and almost hesitating before it slides out of view, it's whistle steaming like a kettle and it's metal grinding against the tracks.

As they walk, the scenes of Bonyari during rush hour envelope them. All the people milling about, crossing streets, checking watches and phones as cars rove by and horns honk and all the noises of people chatting, gossiping, shouting, yelping, and monologuing. Crowds cluster and mingle on the platform and the street-corners and outside cafes and shops. Several people sit on the concrete steps leading up to the platform, eating sandwiches or hot dogs or pocky. Everyone listening to music, reading magazines and newspapers and tablets, scrolling on their phones, sending messages, making and receiving calls and some people just holding their knees and watching everyone.

As they cross the first block, she hears the woman's voice of the intercom system, suggesting people to 'check the gap' and that 'safety is a community effort.' It reminds her of an anticlimactic _1984_. Realizing someone must've turned the intercom volume up too loud, she lets a smirk inhabit her face.

"I bet she's pretty or a maid," Shuu says, wearing his sheep's-grin as they stop at a street-corner and wait for the light to change. He stuffs his hands into his pockets after adjusting the school-bag slung over his shoulder.

"She's a machine," Ruri says, feeling her bag-strap cut into her clavicle and re-adjusting it when he looks across the street at a girl from school.

"Well, she's a sexy machine though, like Siri," he responds, laughing.

"Who, the girl?" she asks as the light turns and they step off the curb.

"No, the intercom lady," he says, laughing again.

"Oh," she says back, watching him in her periphery. His laugh changes with context. Often, he mimics the laughs of those around him but just as often he adjust his laughter so that it fits into an image he wants to present. When he's made a perverted joke, his laughs turns into a hyuking sort of sound or sometimes like an old man's wheezy laughter. Sometimes, it's just a burst of a laugh or a trickling laugh. When people seem somber, he likes to laugh like a mountain-man, straight from his diaphragm. And, when people are chatting and pleased his laughs become almost dainty as he closes his eyes and a smile emerges in the corner of his mouth.

Right now it's an airy sort of laugh, almost melancholic. When it's over, his smiles is small and sort of empty until he notices her watching him. Then, his smile widens and he grins.

That's how it's been. Maybe since middle school, but Ruri never noticed it until the others went off to that island, keys and pendant and children's book in hand. She told them they should wait for school to end, it being their final year with all the exams. But, as Marika told her while waving a finger in her face, ' _Love is always a hurricane!'_

Ruri never bother to call her out on taking life advice from a shounen manga. Instead, she just saluted them farewell and walked her best friend to the airport. It's been a few days past a week since then. Every couple days she'll receive a text from Kosaki, but always it's just a checking-in sort of message, something unrevealing and almost curt with a little smily added at the end like a passive period mark.

"Have you heard from Ichijou?" she asks, adjusting her bag again as they cross the final street and weave through the crowds towards the stairs.

"Nope. Have you heard from Onodera?"

"Just little messages."

"Right."

Then, there is that silence again. They're footsteps feel loud to her, the clacking of school shoes on the cement. But, so does everything else, all the crowd sounds and train sounds, the passing phone conversations, people's music leaking out from their earbuds, the lady on the intercom. The smells are loud too, the smell of McDonalds, the smell of coffees, mochas, lattes, the smell of bodies and of perfume and cologne. And, the smell of Shuu. Someone bumps into him and he bumps into Ruri. His body is much larger than her's, but she does not stumble.

"Whoops," he says, grinning. She just shoots him a look.

"You smell like an old man, like a dying, decaying, rotting - decrepit - ruined - retired old man," Ruri says, staring forward, holding the strap of her bag up off her shoulder. Looking at her hand, he smiles and laughs again. This time the laugh falls out of him as if on accident. There is a spontaneity to it that she hadn't heard in awhile.

"You smell like-"

She hits him. A quick jab to the temple. Stumbling a bit, chuckling, he lets her walk ahead then catches up. When he reappears at her side, some feeling between them eases, as if by closing the distance between her fist and his head, she closed some other, unspoken distance that she didn't even notice was there.

"Let me carry your bag," he offers, sticking his hand out as they stop in front of the steps. She watches him, then looks up the stairs and then back at him.

"No. Why would I let you just carry my bag up the steps, anyway? We walked several blocks to get here, and now that we're already here - Well, that doesn't even matter. You only offered because you have to, or you feel like you have to," she says, an anger swelling in her voice. Seeing the blankness in his face, she scowls down at their feet.

"No way!" he responds, then quiets down, "Just 'cause Raku thinks he has to, doesn't mean I do. I just want to! See, see Ruri, see how genuine my face is?"

She looks back up at him and tries not to laugh. His expression is pitiful, some hideous mix between doe eyes and a wolf's grin. It looks almost painful to keep his face contorted like that.

"What - stop that," she starts, stuttering and almost laughing. Keeping her frown, she readjusts her bag and starts climbing the steps. He saw it anyway, the flicker in her expression. For a moment, she forgot to keep composed. Pushing his hands into his pockets, he smiles and pauses before following her

The stairs are cluttered with people sitting or standing or looking off at some distance. People eat and talk and scroll on their phones and read books and magazines and manga and sip coffees and sodas and smoke cigarettes and e-cigarettes. As they ascend, they weave around the people but nobody seems to notice them. Some intuitively sway out of the way, and several others just sit there.

As they climb the last few steps, the platform unfolds before them. The crowds they spotted a couple blocks away become clusters of individuals moving in various directions, some moving in groups and swelling towards train-cars, and some moving on their own and cutting through to reach someone or to reach an open-space or a spot to sit. There are many people hovering at the edges of the platform, sitting on the benches or railings or leaning against the trash cans or recycle bins.

There seems to be a uniform to everyone's expressions, a lax gaze on everyone's faces, a perpetual sigh, a mask of skin and eyes and lips and noses. Except for Shuu, who notices a gaggle of beautiful girls wearing a different school's uniform and lingering near the tracks. They have those puffy, lost expressions of first years, that pinkish hue to their cheeks, that exaggerated way of speaking and laughing as if everything is ironic.

And, they all hold lattes from Starbucks. Ruri notices other men watching the girls too, wether through sunglasses or the corner of their eyes or from across the platform. Some of the men are young like Shuu, and some are aged and in the midst of their careers, wearing suits and carrying briefcases and rubbing their bald spots.

"You disgust me," she says, looking to Shuu. He pauses, half-blushing, mouth open, and laughs again. This time the laugh is his perverted laugh, the one that makes her scoff and look away.

A train rolls in, clanking to a stop on the tracks, a loud whistling noise half-covering the sound of the woman's voice on the intercom as the doors open and the train seems to exhale. The crowd pushes forward, seeping through the open doors like heavy liquid. Glancing to Shuu, she raises a small hand, mouths the words ' _see you tomorrow'_ and turns away, walking stiffly into the crowd, disappearing into the mess of bodies and letting their current pull her into the train.

As the doors close, she tries to look out the window, but there are too many people. Surrounding her are textures of polyester and cotton, the weight of people's backs and torsos, and their faces staring at nothing, sweating flesh, glazed eyes, mouths and noses. In front of her is someone's back clothed in a sport's coat. Staring into it, she observes the threading in the fabric and feels the train lurch, the crowd sway and then, a weightlessness.


	3. Chapter 3

Watching her tiny body disappear into the crowd and watching the crowd cram into the train-car and watching the train stutter, lurch and roll away; Shuu breathes in, holds his breath, takes his hands out of his pockets, looks upwards, and exhales.

He sees the sky, and it looks so thin today, like worn fabric or a photograph looked at too many times. He imagines that after so many years up there the sky must be tired, must be aged and sleepy, like a snoozing old man in a rocking chair. And yet, sometimes the sky is sprightly, like Ruri's late great-grandfather, and flicking sunlight and rain all over the town.

Laughing at himself, Shuu rubs the back of his neck and looks down at the cement and his tennis shoes. The white laces look like knotted-up flatworms. The Converse symbol looks like a badge, as if by wearing it he swears an allegiance. He feels a sudden urge to tear the symbol off, then he lets the urge go.

"It's fun to think about," he mutters, scanning the crowd just in case he sees somebody he recognizes. There is a desperation to it, he notices, a routine desperation in the way he looks for people in a crowd. And too, there is an equally routine desperation to the way his scanning dulls, and the faces in the crowd become a single static as he realizes again that he is alone and wants to be alone. Standing as one individual inhabiting one space. And all around him are more individuals inhabiting their own spaces.

Then, he scoffs at himself. He opens his mouth, glances at the girls, and closes it.

Striding forward, he weaves through the mingling people and approaches the tracks, pushing the tips of his shoes onto the yellow line you're not supposed to cross. Looking down the railway, he sees a blaring headlight and steps back, then forward again.

Over the intercom, the robot woman announces the train and he wonders how interviews go for a job like that. A room full of women with unassuming and unthreatening voices, trying not to stutter, trying not to sound too assertive.

He clutches his bag-strap as the train-horn blares and the headlight flashes.

In his mind, he goes through a list of people he knows.

There is his father. His older sister and his other older sister. His aunt and his other aunt. His favorite uncle and his other uncle and his other other uncle. His cousins, all six of them. No grandparents. Most of these people live in other parts of Japan. His oldest sister attends Tokyo U for microeconomics and comes home during the holidays. An aunt and uncle retired early but still live in southern Hokkaido with their youngest child while their two older children work for a tourist company in Okinawa. The other three cousins, and the other aunt, live scattered about Honshu and sometimes Shikoku, moving from place to place and job to job, appearing only as status updates and photo albums on Facebook.

Only his father, his second oldest sister, and his favorite uncle live in Bonyari. They are people he comes home to, does chores with, eats dinners and breakfasts with, and on Sundays they play WiiU. They living in an unassuming duplex in an assuming neighborhood about seven stops away. His father works in retail and always brings home the clothing with little defects, a mis-colored stitch in a sweater sleeve, a deformed zipper on a pair of jeans, a missing button on a cardigan. His sister stays at home most days watching baseball games on television and working part-time as a junior league coach. His uncle owns a lock-shop downtown and wears his hair in a ponytail and buys Shuu's photography.

The position of uncle gives him a comfortable distance, but he also watched Shuu grow up. He knows Shuu like his father does, but the investment is different. When his parents found a porno mag under his mattress several years ago, they fought about his fractured morals. He could hear them arguing through the bedroom walls while his other porno mag lay open on his desk-top. His uncle just laughed and bought him a camera in exchange for the second magazine.

In some ways, a parent's duty is thankless. They urge their child into higher academics, and into higher morality, and into higher paying jobs. And then, their child despises them and loves them and often cannot admit either. Every conversation is like a continuation of previous arguments. And every look in the eye, or casual glance, or passing touch, brings about memories of childhood.

At any moment's notice, a parent might start weeping and yet they must hide their weeping while the child just goes on looking the other way, playing a video game, studying for an exam, going out with a friend. A parent might try to be warm all the time, even though that is impossible. There are only a few people Shuu has ever met that can be truly warm even some of the time, that can bring about genuine joy in other people's faces with just a turn of phrase or a casual glance.

His uncle has that ability. That way of talking with people and making them smile, not because he tries to but because it just happens. He possesses that invisible something. Shuu has tried to inherit that ability, but it's never the same. It's disingenuine. He mimics. The way he rallies the other boys in class, the way some of the girls give him chocolates, and how he can make almost anyone laugh.

Less than an ability to give warmth, he has an ability to see inside another person, to decode their thought processes and motivations. From there, he can make himself important to people. Maybe that's why he's drawn to Raku and the others, and Ruri, because they are so immune to him.

There is a foghorn, a train whistle, a swelling in the chattering crowd. People stand close to him, encasing him in a semi-circle, everyone watching the headlight come ever closer. Bright and powerful, like a spirit or a sun.

 _Who else do I know?_

Raku is not like that, and yet he is like that. Raku is an enigma. He is both consistently unimpressive and extremely loyal. He does not have that nameless gift of interacting with people and filling them with warmth, but he is not a manipulator and he holds his values tight. Even though those values were simply inherited from his father in the form of a list pinned to his wall, it still results in the right people liking him and wanting to be near him which results in Raku, and his circle of friends, being filled with that sense of community, companionship, love. In fact, rather than a pendant, he is more like a key.

"Yeah," Shuu mutters with a small smile.

The train rushes past the tip of his nose. What was empty space fills with metal and gears and seats and windows. Feeling the hot wind of the train's wake, he closes his eyes, and when he opens them the doors are right in front of him. Feeling a small satisfaction, he waits for the doors to open and then leads the crowd through. Grabbing a hand-hold, he watches all the people pour in around him, concealing him, filling in all the gaps.

 _Kyoko was like that._

She has that way about her, like his uncle and maybe like Raku. She could enter the classroom and it was like some light turned on somewhere in the world. Yui does that, too, although her warmth is somewhat of a menagerie, a warmth born of fear. Nonetheless, she still gives a gift that she has no choice but to give.

 _Who else?_

The doors close, the seats are crowded, someone's knee bumps into his. He apologizes and looks away, closes his eyes. People talk with each-other, others are silent and staring at their phones. He smells cigarette smoke on someone's jacket, feels the vibration of the train beneath his shoes, hears the slurp of a soda and the following quiet of judgement. Then, he opens his eyes.

There are many school uniforms here, and there are many business suits. There is an energy in the students that the salarymen lack, a brightness in their expressions and voices, and he wonders if that's because they are younger and less tired. Still ascending that plateau to adulthood, they haven't discovered that what lay on the other side is just an endless flatland - or - perhaps the students simply don't hide their emotions like their parents do. Perhaps, it's generational, a changing time.

How do you know when times are changing? Is it like air pressure, do you feel it pulsing in your temples, do you see it in the faces of strangers, a sense of urgency, a sense of fright? Or, do you only notice if you follow the news and analyze it from overhead, as if the news is a little toy town and you stand above it all, watching the pieces move.

His thoughts drift to Shinzo Abe, an enigma in his own right. Abe is like a constructed cut-out, like any life-size cardboard you might see downtown, directing people into a certain store or restaurant and away from the other stores and restaurants. But surely he has thoughts too. He must go around and see people and wonder about them and sometimes just stand there and feel like the world moves around him like many shifting reflections on glass. Is he like his uncle and Kyoko? Can Abe fill somebody with warmth the moment he enters a room? Doubtful. But still, in Shuu's mind the man changed somewhat, he turned and his face became more clear, even if that clarity might be unreal.

 _Ruri?_

Smiling, he looks up at the curved ceiling of the train, the way it shakes as the train moves. Out the windows, trees and buildings flicker by like movie frames spliced too close together. Letting his eyes drift towards the ads, he stops thinking. So brightly-colored, full of kanji and beautiful people smiling stiffly and sometimes, an English word sat in the middle of it all.


	4. Chapter 4

Her face makes him laugh, the way it twists in disgust.

They stand near a pillar at the platform, the morning air is stiff and chilly and a little dewy. The people of early rush walk slowly, they check the air in their bike tires, they linger at the stairs and find the right music on their phones. In the quiet of morning people seems to draw attention to themselves just by moving, as if they disturb some sense of stillness.

Noises are like that too, the blaring whistle of the train sound almost timid in the morning, the release of steam sounds a little languid, the robot voice over the intercom sounds hesitant. Or even the sound of a bike wheel rolling along the concrete, of the noise of someone's footsteps as they cross the platform. There is a sense of quiet that the noises seem to adhere to. And all the conversations are spoken in low voices, almost timid, dry.

There is also the sun, just risen past the stout buildings and roofs of Bonyari. It's light washes out the sky and becomes pale like a pond. The clouds are thin but spreading, creating a sort of filter for the sunlight. The shadows are faint, and down the block, the street-lamps flicker out.

Then, there are the smells of morning. On Shuu's breath there is that taste of black coffee, and his deodorant is still sharp and pervasive, his clothing smells like clean laundry. On Ruri, he smells olive oil and fried eggs. He's almost surprised he doesn't smell chlorine.

"Did you have eggs this morning? Fried in olive oil, perchance?" he says, not quite a question, a quivering grin on his face as if he is about to give way to laughter.

Hesitating, she opens her mouth to speak and feels a grinding mix of disgust, wariness and something like respect along with a sense of oncoming loss. There is a sanctity to the morning, to the stillness and pale hue of morning, a sort of meditation. And, she knows his laughter will interrupt that stillness and make it vanish, giving way to the glaze of the day-to-day.

Ruri imagines the morning as a timid bird that perches on her forefinger or shoulder as she walks to school, and that bird will flit away from any sharp movement or sudden noise, anything that interrupts it's small and fretting quiet. Here is Shuu. With all his buzzing excitement and obnoxious movements and contrived laughter, he will frighten the morning away, leaving her with just living.

"No," she lies, looking away, wiping her face blank, adjusting her bulging bag. First, he looks surprised, then his expression recedes into a sad sort of smile. She looks up again, and the quality of his smile recedes too, becoming just lips and skin.

"Yes," she admits, looking away again, letting the bird fly away all on it's own, "I had two eggs fried in olive oil, I put them on top of a slice of toast. But the eggs were still wet and so the toast got mushy and broke into pieces. I placed the mess into a bowl and treated it like rice."

"But you didn't make rice?"

"No, why would I make rice this early."

"Some people do."

"Did you?"

"Yep! I woke up, got the rice cooker ready, took a shower, got dressed, and when I was back the rice was done."

"I always brush in the shower."

"And so you eat before that?"

"Yes, no sense brushing then eating."

"I agree," he says, smiling forward as they descend the steps of the platform. Seven blocks away, there is the school, disappearing into a dip in the street as they reach the bottom of the stairs. The walk several blocks in silence, watching as the school re-emerges as they pass over a small hill.

Soon, there are students everywhere, all wearing their school uniforms, chatting with pale bags under their eyes and that puffed-up look of a person just woken up. They carry mochas and lattes and chai tea in mugs, disposable and reusable, Starbucks, Go-Go-Cafe, and home brewed.

Ruri watches the way they look, the way they take sips and grimace. Sometimes, the grimace is real, sometimes it's not, but their eyes constantly flit about at the other students. A lazy sort of annoyance wrinkles in Ruri's chest as she watches the coffee drinkers and the people who drink sweet teas, the way they put on a sort of show. This is another import, she thinks, from the West, both the coffee and the way young people pretend to grumble in the mornings.

"Coffee or tea?" Shuu asks as they and the crowd of students wait at a crosswalk.

"Tea," she lies. He watches her profile as they cross the street, and she can see him in her periphery. She tries to just focus on what's in front of her and feels a tinge of pain as the strap of her bag cuts into her shoulder.

"Fine. Coffee or tea?" she asks, adjusting the bag.

"…Coffee," he says, pretending not to see her adjust the bag, "Then tea. Coffee first, black, no sugar, no cream, that's what black means, unless I want the cream or the sugar, then it's not black. If I don't get black, then I get dark tea after coffee, some bitter kind of tea. We have all sorts at home. I sort of like these western things, you know. Oolong tea's an import too, from China, I think. Or was it just green teas? I don't really remember."

"Right. Stop telling me what black means. I know what black means," she says, looking away from him, scanning the other students as if checking for someone else to talk to.

Of course, she recognizes almost everyone but also realizes that even if she did see a teammate or another girl, there is no way she'd approach them. She has no desire to talk to anyone else, but she also has no desire to talk to Shuu.

Alongside that, there is another desire to just stay put and listen. It's like she wants to walk next to him from very far away. It makes her feels rigid and mixed up, and so she just adjusts the weight of her bag again and keeps going.

"Let's talk about something worldly, you like worldly," Shuu suggests, the school's front gate coming into view.

With it, there is an impending sort of doom, a knowledge that soon they will be past that gate and into the front yards of the school, then they will be past the doors and into the tiled hallways, then they will be in a classroom and the teacher will lecture, and they will be silent and yet sat right next to one another. Their presence will be large in the other's mind, just as the empty seats of their friends will be large, but all will recede as the class gets going. Between them, there will be the comfortable, forced silence of a classroom.

He just wants to let this last a little longer.

"Fine," Ruri says, making her voice bite. She feels like he took something from her, like he took silence from her, or the morning, or contemplation. And she feels like he will only keep taking these things from her, just as the day before he tried to take her sense of pride when he offered to carry her bag and walked her to the train stop. She decides he takes something from all the girls he ogles, and, in the back of her mind, she decides he takes something from himself, too.

"Let's chat abou-"

"What do you think of Japan?" Ruri interrupts, refusing to let the conversation be pleasant. Watching her, he slows down and thinks. They linger near the front gate as other students pass them by tossing casual glances, sipping coffees and tea, carrying bags and books, chatting.

"In what context?" he asks.

"What do you think of Abe, how he prayed at the shrine dedicated to Japanese soldiers in the war. And what do you think of his desire to militarize. How do you think these connect."

"Well," he starts, almost letting out a sigh and yet feeling some spite of excitement, "I don't know much about Abe. To me he seems like - a piece of paper, I guess - not really a real person-"

"But he is real," she says, her voice grinding, "And he is powerful. His decisions affect us all. We are a small, island country with an atrocious past. Our birthrate is declining rapidly. All around us are screens, iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, they all bare the same logo and our generation just stares at them with blank expressions. We rely on the West for growth. First, they destroyed us. Then, they rebuilt us in their image. And while that resulted in an economic boom, it also resulted in a loss of self. How can we continue to beg at their knees? How can Abe go to America, to their Congress and whimper? If the trade deal goes through our corporations will become more powerful, yes, and we will receive economic benefits, but this will go into direct opposition with our fading image, that of a stoic, silent country with a sheathed blade. We are manipulated. We are used. And too-"

"What does this have to do with the shrine visit?"

"Everything has to do with it, his visit was not just a show of emotion but a way to subvert the minds of the Japanese, to make them long for the old, samurai ways, for military. And this just happens to coincide with our ongoing scuffles with China. If all goes well, for Abe, then our economy booms as a result of increased globalization, while at the same time we receive an active military to drop in the seas between us and the mainland. But where does this place us for the future?"

"I don't know, Ruri. But, the emperor just apologized for all that."

"For what?" she asks, knowing what he means. Even after all the time she's spent trying to expand the limits of her thinking, trying to criticize her nation and other nations while remaining a culturalist, she struggles. The dishonor of her country's past actions frightens her. She feels like a set of contradictions, just like Japan feels like a set of contradictions. And then, while sorting out all the interjecting worldviews, she must ask and answer what it means for her as a woman. Sometime, that question is all that matters. And, sometimes, there is just too much.

"Well, I don't know if he meant it. Maybe," Shuu says, looking down at his feet, feeling the suddenness of this discussion, how in an instant Ruri put herself out there without even meaning to and then pulled herself back with the same lack of intention. Her criticisms feel alive in their own way, like angry ghosts flying about her mind, finally released into the wild. Their passing classmates cast little glance then look away.

"But," he continues, "It sounds like you don't know what you want for Japan. As if you cannot decide if the economic safety and expansion that Abe wants will be good or bad. You seem to recognize that we, our generation, will thrive in business. But at the same time this will put us in a place of world power dynamics where we cannot compete. That our declining population will not keep up with our global presence."

"I don't know."

"I think that - no - I don't know what I think either. It's hard to know."

"Yeah."

As they approach the front door of the school, they feel as though the tile beneath them is fragile and cracking, as though the land they tread on, Japan, is shriveling, whimpering, and covering itself with it's bare, bony forearms.

Ruri tells herself never to discuss this with Shuu again, to just live and let live, while Shuu tells himself he will be ready next time to say something meaningful. They put their shoes in their lockers and go to class.


	5. Chapter 5

"The real problems are the ties between government and business," Shuu says, arms folded, "The way our nation is practically an oligarchy, and the way the western nations are like that too. Abe isn't really the problem, he's more like a middle-man, in a way, and he's stuck between love for Japan and love, or maybe greed, for money. He's trapped in a political system, unable to do good because he needs to be re-elected, and to be re-elected he has to do what the corporate leaders want. And sometimes what they want and what he wants coincide. But I don't think he ever wakes up with evil intentions. I think, when he wakes up, he goes through a list of affirmations in his head that justify what he does."

"There is no _true_ evil in him, obviously," Ruri concedes, "But then what is he? Just a husk of a politician, just an image of a human."

"Isn't that how we are too? Not you and me, but Japan as a whole? Don't we look away from what we did in Nanking, don't we-"

"Yes! Yes we do, fine. But we also have an honor we shouldn't go against. We should not bow our heads."

"I bet Abe says that too."

"So what if he does."

"Don't you think peace will come with redemption?"

"Not if we prostrate ourselves. They will step on us," she says, waving if off, "There's too much bad history."

"Yes, there is," he agrees, unfolding his arms, "By the way, Ruri…"

"What?"

Looking down at her swimsuit, he winks and gives a thumbs up. She hits him and walks away, wrapping the towel around her waist. He watches her, the rigid way she walks, the way she looks like a bald alien with the swim cap and the goggles.

Her contours are bony, full of edges and angles, and her frame is like a stalk without hills or valleys. But, she doesn't seem to care. It's relieving, in some way, to know a girl who doesn't worry about that stuff.

 _You know, she's sort of beautiful like that,_ he thinks, then stops thinking.

Stretching his arms behind his back, he lingers at the edge of the swimming pool, turning his gaze on the remaining girls. Two of them wade near the shallows, laughing, chatting, splashing each-other and watching him warily. Their hair sticks to their shoulders and clavicles and the can't stop moving, either swaying in the water or skating their palms along the surface or stretching their arms.

Then, there is one girl finishing her laps. Front crawl, she alternates breaths, her movements are erratic and inexperienced as she moves slowly through the water. So much flailing and so little speed.

The sound of splashing echoes through the room. Everything is wet tile and there is a stillness to it all. Disregarded towels strewn over chair-backs and bleachers. Chlorine scent. Every stray laugh or splash or swell in conversation echoes and bounds throughout the room. There is a peace here.

Looking over to the door to the girl's locker room, Shuu hesitates then lets out a laugh and thinks about their conversation. She seems to waver between positions. At one point, Japan's honor is most important. At the next, she claims they need to just be what they are. It's as though she doesn't know how to say what she thinks, and so latches onto certainties or things she's heard other people say.

Obviously, she is informed in her worldview, probably more-so than him, but she is also muddled by outrage. Her mind is cluttered and contradicting. But, is that fine? Is that part of what it means to be human?

In the locker room, Ruri peels off the school swimsuit and looks down at herself. She sees the form of her thin breasts and nipples, her flat stomach, her groin with the little hairs, her swimmer's legs and arms and her knobby knees and elbows. In some way, she is afraid of her body because it is a girl's body. There are connotations with it and often she wishes she could just have her body the way it is without anybody judging it.

But also, her body is a membrane, and that's how she chooses to view it. A cluster of cells. Her skin and hair are dust, her guts and her blood and her bones. Her body is a system, and she, while an individual consciousness, is composed of billions of smaller, also living beings. Are they less important than the body they compose? Is it anybody's fault if they construct a body that doesn't fit the unattainable imagery purveying advertisements, magazines, movies, television, the internet, comics and novels, and even textbooks?

Beyond athleticism and wanting to be healthy, she does not understand girls, or boys for that matter, who prune their bodies, who shave every place nobody usually sees. Who weigh themselves and rub oils and herbs into their skin. Who watch make-up tutorials on YouTube. Who worry about their breast size and the gap between their thighs and if their butt looks good at any moment. It almost infuriates her when Kosaki worries about her form. But, at the same time, that worry is so far from her own sensibilities that she cannot help but feel something like awe.

Tossing the swimsuit in the laundry hamper, she sighs and opens her locker. Dropping her towel on the floor, she steps on it and experiences a sense of comfort. It's soft, damp, spongy between her toes. She's used to it.

She dresses quickly but tries not to. Why are women taught to be ashamed of their bodies? Why does she know so many girls who carry mirrors in their bags that are powerful enough to expose pores and the woodgrain of their skin? She knows why but still she asks why, and she doesn't know why she keeps asking. Maybe, she still hopes for change, because she knows progress happens in a slow, dry, incremental way, sometimes so slowly we cannot even notice it.

Dressed, she drops her towels into the hamper and looks around the locker room. Steam lingers about the showering area, drifting along the ceiling. Towels and swimsuits lie tossed across benches and hanging locker doors, along with deodorant tubes and make-up accessories and a stray bottle of toothpaste.

After cleaning up the room and closing the lockers, she opens the door to the pool area. There is a rush of chilly air and open space and echoing noises along with a sudden, ethereal quiet, like a stillness. And, the sudden scent of chlorine. She rarely notices the smell, and whenever she does, she smiles. It carries a feeling of home to her.

People, all people, hide in some way from the people they love and the people they don't love. Kosaki hides in her head and in girly things, little stuffed animals, diary keeping, stationary. Tsugumi hides in strenuous exercise and the day-to-day. And she, Ruri, hides in the swimming pool, in the front crawl and butterfly, in the mechanics of swimming, in the repetitive laps and breathing exercises, and she hides in classic literature, in fantasy fiction, in translation.

Stepping towards the edge of the pool, she looks over at Shuu who stands there smiling at her. She doesn't know where he hides.

"Ready?" he asks without concealing his glee. She nods.


	6. Chapter 6

There is the smell of burgers and oils, of fried fats and chemicals, and salt, beef, cheese, soda. There are the sounds of people chatting. All around them people chat and eat, they tear at their burgers and fries, they devour them, ravish them. Their eyes are wild as they eat, as if hypnotized, as if put under spell.

Ruri and Shuu sit in a booth. The vast table between them is topped with a basket of yellow fries, glistening with salt and oils; two trays with burgers wrapped in their foils and sodas with bendy straws and that sound of sizzling carbonation. All their notebooks and textbooks sit stacked at the end of the table, in front of the empty seats where the others would've sat.

She watches as Shuu unwraps his burger and bites into it, the shift in his expression as the juices and oils ignite his tastebuds, he almost looks momentarily blinded. There is a vulnerability in eating fatty foods. She wonders if she looks like that too.

Looking down at her own burger, it seems far from her, like someone else's misplaced object. She imagine being a hunter-gatherer and finding this somewhere in a forest, maybe sat atop a mossy boulder or in the nook of some pine tree. Would she salivate and eat it? Or would she take one bite and know something's wrong. Would she smell the chemicals and decide it's poisoned.

Without wanting to, she speaks.

"We trust out government to protect us," she says, and Shuu watches her over his burger, "In simple ways. Like, we expect them to protect us from foreign threats, from wars and bombs, terrorism. And yet, here in our food, foreign corporations poison us, and they do so with government consent. How is this possible? Why do we trust them?"

It's not a question she expects an answer for, and she regrets even saying anything. Since this morning, all their conversations have been continuations of their discussion about Abe and Japan and it seems as though all their conversations from here on will be like continuations of the same, old arguments.

Not that she doesn't believe what she says, but she just doesn't want to put it out there anymore. She's tired of it, of both the outrage and the shame.

As she condemns, she senses people watching her, the students in the hallways and the teammates at swim practice. And, she senses her family, both the living and the dead, watching her with disappointed faces as she evicerates their homeland.

There's so much to know and articulate that knowing and articulating becomes impossible. There is so much to be outraged about so much change to clamor for that it feels like she's just shouting at walls.

And yet, she can't stop talking about it.

"I don't know," Shuu says wanting to eat his burger and laugh and makes jokes while also wanting to prove something of himself. He feels like if they talk deeply, she will see some knowledge in him, and they will connect.

These are not conversations he can have with Raku, or with his sister, or with the other boys. And, he suspects, these are not conversations she can have with Kosaki or her swim-mates. He feels like there is an open door that only he knows is open.

And yet, whenever they try and speak about these things, it feels like something much larger lurks in the back of it all, like they are on a skiff on the ocean and, below them, is the massive shadow of a whale. They can talk about Abe all they want, and about Japan's honor, and about all those wars and massacres, but it will never get at that _thing_ that connects it all, that makes the conversations and discussions worthwhile.

"I think," Shuu starts, lowering his burger, "I think you're right, Ruri. But there's just, well, what do we even do about it?"

Ruri bites into her burger, and he feels a spurt of melancholy while she feels that animal joy of eating. They came here to study, but there is nothing to study. Neither of them need the help, and neither of them can help each-other anyway.

"Where are you going to university?" he asks, and she looks up. Between them, the trays feel like shields. And, the basket of fries lays untouched, glistening in oil and salt.

"Overseas," she says.

"To study English?"

"Yes."

"There are good schools here, though," he says, immediately feeling bad for constraining her with his statement but also feeling as though he had a sort of duty to say it. He cannot decide if that sense of duty comes from a selfish desire or, perhaps, from a loyalty to her and her friends.

Imagining her being "overseas" brings a sense of dread that does not appear when he imagines her living miles away on the other side of Japan. Realizing it's just selfishness that drove him to speak, a sort of self-manipulation, he looks down and bites into his burger.

"I know-" and she cannot say it. Japan is an island. She feels vulnerable here, like she herself is an island on the map of her community. Her desire to leave the island is irrational, in some ways, but still feels legitimate.

That's another struggle, between logic and emotion. To be human, you need both, and yet our society teaches us that the enlightened are only rational. There's too many conflicts to suss out, so she bites into her burger.

"What about you?"

"I'm thinking of trade school," he says, smiling and looking out the window. There are people passing by, earbuds, phones, carrier-bags, briefcases, school uniforms. Many glance inside as they pass, then they glance away.

In the window, he sees his reflection, just visible against the afternoon sunlight. He can only make out the shape of his face, the ridge of his eyes, his nose, his chin. He smiles with his teeth and the shape changes.

"Why? You have good grades." she says, and he looks back to her and laughs stiffly. Her expression is blank, the burger sits half-eaten in her hand.

"I don't know," he says, and it's not quite a lie. He has an inkling as to why trade school seems so alluring to him. Its an island, too. To be blue-collar, to weld and craft and engineer. He feels safety in that idea of isolation, while she feels shame and vulnerability. He wants to surround himself with a moat and build a draw-bridge, while she wants to travel outside of her moat.

"Why?" she asks again, her gaze setting in. He chuckles softly.

"I guess I like the idea of working, you know," he responds, she watches him, "I guess, I don't mind it. I spend a lot of time thinking about things in the abstract, watching people, wondering about them, deciding things about them. I like the idea of doing something concrete."

"That's respectable," she decides and takes another bite of her burger. He looks up and when she doesn't lower the burger, he looks down at his own and picks it up. They finish quietly.

"So," he starts, wiping his mouth and crumpling the burger-foil into a tight ball. She watches him as he does this, her own foil left open on her tray like the peeled shell of something or the husk of a molted snake. It twitches in the air conditioning.

"We should study now," Ruri says, pushing the tray aside.

"This is a somber date," he says, and she stops. Looking at him, she tries to manufacture an expression of disgust, the safe humor she employs. Instead, she looks bewildered, almost frightened, then she blushes and frowns. He laughs.

"No," she says, looking away, reaching to grab her textbook and notebook.

"And, it's our third, I think. You know what people do on _third_ dates," he says, trying not to laugh. Her face whips towards him, her eyes hard and furious. He breaks into laughter and she sighs and scoffs and waits for it to finish.

"Its not," she tells him, "And it wouldn't. Where would the other two come from?"

"There was the time we ate noodles together, at the hospital cafeteria."

"That's just because we both happened to be there at the time same, when Ichijou had his appendix taken out. I just wanted Kosaki to be alone with him and you just happened to be hanging around, for some reason."

"Then, there was the time after that."

"What time?"

"Ruri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri- "

"Stop."

"It makes me sad that you don't remember," he coos, and her face ripples with annoyance as he straightens his back and says, "The New Years Festival."

"Why does it feel like you're saying 'New Years Festival' in quotations?"

He laughs, and she folds her arms.

"That wasn't a date," she says, closing her eyes, "We went there with all the others."

"But we saw the binding firework together," he says back, smiling and leaning forward again.

"With everyone."

"But we went off on our own, and played some festival games, and I ate dango and you ate that corn-dog thi-"

"Just because we went looking for Ichijou and Haru."

"Nuances, nuances," he says, leaning back and waving his hands in the air. She watches him and he laughs to himself like a naughty old man.

"If this were a date," she starts, and he stops laughing, observing her with his sheep's grin, "Then it'd be a shitty date. The conversation is fleeting, somber, and unusual. You did not buy my food, like you would if it were actually a date. And, this is a McDonalds which is not a place people go on dates. Also, we're still wearing our school uniforms, and my hair is wet from swimming and I smell like chlorine."

"Well," he says, "Shitty date's still a date."

She breathes out through her nose like a rageful bull and watches him. He watches her too, half-smiling, one eyebrow raised. Cocking her head to the side but not losing her frown, she lets her thoughts drift. She considers the options.

What changes after a date? Anything? Isn't a date just a word people use, an arrangement of sounds that signify an event that we've construed into something important? Really, isn't a date just eating and talking with another person before going separate ways? True enough, there is a ritual to a date, a declaration that you are there for the other person and that you like the other person and that you wish to sit across from them and look at their face and hear them speak and respond to what they say. But still, a function of a date, the main function, is to assess someone, to determine their value. Isn't that what happened here? Didn't she admit his goal is respectable albeit vague, and didn't she also admit that she does not trust their society and in some way, admitted that she does not trust herself?

And, just maybe, she feels that desire to hold onto someone, to grasp someone before they slip off into their respective futures. Graduation draws near. Kosaki is still on that island sending small texts that reveal nothing. When she returns, everything will be different. The dynamic of their friendship, the dynamics inside her; Kosaki's goals, Kosaki's emotions, Kosaki's determination.

And, too, the dynamics of their friend group will change. There might be rifts, there might be averted glances or plain derision. There might be hugs, condolences, perspective shifts. When they return as a group, she and Shuu will have to asses them and reconfigure their friends in their minds. They will latch onto the parts of their friends that remain unchanged, and they will observe the parts that are new. They will all have to become friends again. Then, everyone will part ways.

Ruri moves to London. Shuu moves onto some trade town in the countryside. Kosaki works in her moms's shop or goes to a girls' school. Ichijou goes onto some university for public justice. Marika goes back to Pittsburgh to finish up her treatment before returning to Kyuushu. Yui continues teaching and maybe returns to China. Chitoge works with her mom in America and Tsugumi follows as her bodyguard. What is happening? What _will_ happen?

Her life feels scattered, breaking into fragments that will drift off and fade, revealing her future. Most of her life will be spent _not_ with these people, _not_ in Bonyari, _not_ with Kosaki. In just a few months she will stand on a sidewalk in a different nation. All around her she will hear the sounds of another language in a specific accent and dialect combined with the slightly different sounds of an English train stop and an English McDonalds, and English boys, English friends, English swimming pools and textbooks and thought processes.

The now is fleeting and yet still here, bound to end and yet caught in a sort of endlessness. That way the current moment moves so slowly, so dryly, so steadily, and yet it always moves. She feels a sense of loss, a sense of doom, a sense of anticipated regret, and too, a tickle in her chest and a feeling similar to opening the front door in the early morning.

"Fine," she decides, "It's shitty. It's a shitty date."


	7. Chapter 7

_I'm not really sure how to proceed_ , she silently admits to herself while sitting on a stool too tall for her feet to touch the floor. She feels exposed and immobile and tries not to make eye contact with him.

According to Shuu, they are on their fourth date. According to Ruri, their second. Instead of their school uniforms, they wear regular clothing. He's wearing jeans and a button-up, while she's wearing a blouse and a skirt with leggings but wishes she wore capris. A skirt is too revealing, it flutters too much in the wind and so she finds herself peering down to check that it's not riding up or caught in her waist-line.

She blames Shuu for this. And, behind him, she blames the patriarchy. But, the patriarchy is too vast, massive, and all encompassing to deal with, and so Shuu becomes it's manifest. She looks at him and feels hatred, then shame, then self-loathing, then a wrinkled, flat mix of feelings that leave her dazed and staring out the window at the passer-bys thinking about how much easier it would be to just wear boy-jeans.

The cafe is called Union Joe's, a novelty place in downtown Bonyari. All the waitresses speak English and wear corsets, and the place is owned and managed by an englishman with dark, flat hair and light eyes and a face like looks like a pit-bull.

He goes around speaking with the other customers who are mostly tourists that talk in quick, loud English which Ruri can only catch snippets of and subsequently doubt her language skill. And, the rest of the customers are 'foodies' taking pictures of their lunches and discussing the textures and flavors and making loud " _mmmm"_ noises while glancing at the owner.

Looking over to Shuu, she says something, but he doesn't hear her. English rock plays over the speaker system, just loud enough to make conversation difficult. She watches him for a bit, then she looks down at her tea when he notices her watching.

The table-top is small enough that their white saucers with white tea-cups are almost touching. Steam curls off the surface of the tea, and Ruri takes a sip, tasting the bitter breakfast black. She can feel It's heat in the tiny, porcelain handle.

"What's up, Ruri?" he asks, projecting his voice over the music. She looks up.

"Why are we here?" she asks while leaning forward, setting the tea-cup down. The little string and the paper hanging out, the bulge of the tea-bag like a clump of wet garbage floating just below the dark surface.

"I figured, since you're going to England, we should try an English place," Shuu says, smiling in that way of his, his eyes bright and hiding. She knows he's up to something, he's almost always up to something. What he's up to doesn't always come to pass, she can never know and can only wait.

"This is The Who, Ruri," he says, indicating the speakers overhead, "Just so you know."

"Who?"

"Yes."

"No," she says, shaking her head, refusing to end up in such a meaningless back and forth, "No, who is The Who?"

He laughs, "I don't know much about them, but they're an English band from the sixties, I think, or the seventies, or the both."

"Oh," she says, jotting that down in her memory, "Like the Beatles."

"Yeah!"

"Do you like this music?"

"No!"

And, their conversation stops. He sits there grinning that grin, and she sits their with her mouth slightly open, her brow wrinkled and her eyes squinted, trying and failing not to judge him.

Taking a sip of her tea, the bag bumps against her upper lip and it reminds her of the way her toes bump against the floor of the swimming pool. The tea is bitter and dark, and she grimaces but refuses to ask for sugar. There's something weak about sugar.

"Ruri," he says.

"What."

"Nothing!" he responds with glee, and laughs, grinning with his teeth. She stares at him. Their silence ripples, and she lets her stare drift to the window and the street outside. There is a little park across the block full of mowed lawns, winding walkways, ginkgo trees and a little fountain in the middle. The water spouts into the crystalline sunlight and its reflections seem to scatter about the air. Small children play in the water with their parents waiting on park benches. The sky is vast and blue, almost heavy, like a blanket. It's the weekend, and she feels something bristling in her chest.

"What're you reading, lately," she asks, tearing her gaze away from the window. She see him sitting across from her, some vague smile on his face as he sets his tea back down.

"1Q84."

"Amazing prose," she says, nodding, closing her eyes.

"Yeah, really great stuff-"

"I tried reading it in English."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. I'm still trying to get through it all. It made me realize how much English I don't even know yet. Nonetheless, the translation work is almost as incredible as the original."

"Well, I don't think I'm going to finish it, though."

"What, why?"

"It's just, I'm choosing not to," he says, almost laughing as he sees some flicker of hate in her face.

"Explain yourself."

"It - okay," he starts, remembering something his mother once told him years ago about a different novel, "This book, it's like origami in that it's beautiful and meticulous and really, truly amaz - Well, like you said, the prose is phenomenal and the individual scenes seem to speak to truths I couldn't express before. But, even so, as I unfold it, I realize it's just paper. You know what I mean?"

"Hmm. Sure. Maybe," she says, her voice dwindling and her gaze drifting past his head and off towards the window again. She watches the people walking by, smiling, chattering people, checking watches and phones and listening to music through earbuds. They go by without noticing anything, although some of them glance in through the window or check themselves in it's reflection.

"Okay," she admits, "Yeah. I know what you mean."

"Yeah."

"Life is like that, too, though."

Opening his mouth, he hesitates and watches her cradle her chin in her hand and stare out the windows. The way her glasses sit on her face, the way her hair is tucked behind her ears and her bangs hanging over her forehead. Following her gaze, he looks out at the people in the street and then the park sat beyond it all.

In the window, she sees his reflection. Some song changes over the speakers. Across the cafe, somebody laughs. And, the tea kettle behind the counter whistles as it steams.

"Let's go to the park," she says. Feeling impolite for leaving any tea in her cup, she tries to finish but it burns her tongue. When she sets it back down, some tea dribbles down the side of the cup and puddles in the base of the saucer. Smiling and standing up, Shuu pulls out his wallet, and Ruri tenses, and he pauses.

"Wait," she starts, but he glances at her with a devilish smirk. Pulling out some cash, he sets it under the saucer so that it stays. Then, he glances back to see if a waitress is looking and he grabs Ruri's cup and sets it on the table-top. Then, he takes her saucer and sets it on top of the cup, covering the opening, and then flips the whole thing so that the saucer is sat on the table-stop and the cup is upside down but not leaking any tea.

Sighing, Ruri grabs his hand to push it away from the trap, but when she does she sees a sudden blush in his cheeks and that moment of surprise where a person's expression cannot hide their feelings. Then, it's over, and his expression is an immovable smile once more. She closes her mouth.

"This is better, watch," she says quietly. With the quick dexterity of an athlete, she pulls the saucer out from the cup without letting any tea loose, so that now the cup is full of tea and upside down on the tabletop. Then, she scoots it to the edge of the table.

"That's mean, Ruri," he coos. Nodding, she takes out her own wallet and pulls out more cash. Then, she grabs Shuu's cup, which is drained empty and takes out the tea bag, placing it on his saucer. Then she rolls up all the cash and sets it inside before flipping that cup over too and scooting it several inches inland from the full cup.

"So," Shuu mutters, "The park?"

"The park."

Standing up, she places her wallet back in her purse and hitches it on her shoulder. They both glance at the waitresses. One of them waves, they wave back. The bell dings behind them as they leave into the noises of downtown Bonyari.

All around them people move like fish in an eddy, crowds weaving in and out from one another with a sort of sixth sense. The people all talk, chat, confide, gossip. Car horns down the block, doors opening and shutting, a gleeful shout here or a ringing phone there.

Across the street is the park with it's sloping hills full of trimmed, green grass dotted by ginkgo trees and weaving walkways. Breaking through the crowd, they cross the street and come out on the other side, keeping their momentum as they cut across a patch of grass and towards a walkway.

The people here are calmer than the people in the street. They walk slower, meandering paths and across the lawns. People look at the flower-beds, they bend over to smell them, they take pictures of the flowers, and the trees, and the fountain, and each-other. Many people lie on the grasses, reading with their backs against tree trunks or lying in patches of shade or eating lunch at park-benches and picnic tables with little baskets and blankets and canteens, half-sandwiches, a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers.

There are joggers wearing spandex or gym shorts, their headphone chords flailing in rhythm against their chests, their faces sweating and staring forward, their ponytails and bangs bouncing. Their quick movement and odd dress make them noticeable against the serenity of the park, but they too hold a certain calm in the steadiness of their motions. A sort of mediation in exercise.

Walking together, but not too close, Shuu and Ruri don't speak. They smell the cut-grass scent and the vague scent of lilies-beds and juniper berries. Somewhere, a lawnmower revs. Down the walkway, children shout and play and the sounds of their splashing in the fountain and the low, gossipy conversations of their parents float up past the slow hill.

Reaching a walkway, they feel the pavement beneath their shoes. The air is almost hot and almost dry and little breezes roll sleepily by, picking up their goose-pimples and moving the grasses in vast swaths. First, they walk with a simple and sustained silence, without need for conversation. Then, the conversation happens anyway.

"I gave extra money," she says, some wrinkle in her voice, maybe a regret, "They're probably cleaning the table by now."

"Me too," he responds, breathing in, a sense of relief, "It was pretty genius to place the money in the empty cup and leave the full cup near the table-edge. She'll go for the close one first, probably."

"Then," she starts, eager to explain, "She will think the other cup is full of tea as well, and will have to scoot it all across the table-top and let it drain into a bowl, or something, only to discover it's full of money instead of tea. I think we gave enough to make up for it, though."

"Pretty good, little Ruri. I underestimated you."

"Don't call me that," she says, scowling half-heartedly. He laughs, her scowl fades, and an excited warmth falls over her as if they just shared a secret. Behind them, they hear the tread of bike wheels, and so she slides up against him to make room.

The bike flies by in a flash, the pitch of the wheels ascending, climaxing, then descending as it disappears past the dip in the hill. Pulling away, she looks off towards the fountain to hide her blushing face.

"We should've brought bikes," Shuu says, smiling, remembering that rushing, free-spirited feeling of riding. Looking at the profile of his face, she remembers the only time she's seen him on a bike.

It was over a year ago, in the midst of summer break, just after her great-grandfather's funeral. She was wearing her school uniform and walking down a long road in the outskirts of Bonyari. A few hours prior, the funeral finished, and after stepping out from the graveyard she just kept walking, crossing first the parking lot, then the street, then the next street, then the town and on through the outskirts.

Out there, the land is flat and treeless with long stretches of power-lines. The sides of the highway are dotted with sandy ditches full of rag-weeds and little rodents, and in the distance she could see low-lying clouds and steep hills, hazy and mirage-like in the summer heat.

At some point, she stopped walking and turned around to go back. Dipped into the flatland, she could see Bonyari, all stout buildings bereft of skyscrapers. There is a simplicity she adores about Bonyari, a hick quality to her town, but too it's connected by train to proper cities. Her town lies on the borderlands of the cities, like a limpet hanging onto a tortoise-shell. In that way, she romanticizes Bonyari for it's slow, dry cadence but also vilifies it for the same quality. In the outskirts of the outskirts, she witnessed her town's small beauty.

There were very few cars that afternoon. The ones that did pass did not slow down. There was a sedan loaded with camping gear, speeding away from town. And another sedan loaded with camping gear, speeding to town.

The only other car was a Lexus she did not recognize but the driver waved to her as it passed. Only minutes later did she realize it held her great-grandfather's attendants heading back to his compound.

Some minutes after that, a semi truck whooshed past, filling her with a moment of fear as the metal behemoth clanked and groaned and passed in an instant, leaving behind a stench of hot diesel and exhaust. Stopping, she watched it become smaller and disappear as it dipped into town.

Then, she felt alone. The landscape was vast and unending, and she was small and mortal. The sun was bright and towering and reminded her of smashed glass although she couldn't understand why. As she started to move again, she felt it's heat slashing at the back of her neck and her sweat sliding through crannies of her body.

Her movements slowed and she felt her skin chafing against her clothing. But, she enjoyed it. It felt as though she were actively existing, as if by accepting the chafing and the sunburn, she took some sort of guilt off her shoulders and her great-grandfather could rest.

It's difficult to smile in the summer heat, but she tried and kept trying as she walked. Sometimes, she'd forget to smile and upon remembering, she would smile even harder. In time, her face hurt, and that pain was good, too. Death moved closer to real.

Her grandfather's death, for a the whole year of mourning, was like a mosaic or stained-glass window that always followed her, a surface pressing against her, and only over time did that surface recede inside of her until his death became his absence. But, at this time, just after the funeral, the death was still just becoming death and it writhed in front of her, restless and striking any opening in her defense.

So, she smiled even as it hurt. She sweated and chafed and burned in the heat of the summer sun. She walked through the pain in her joints and feet. The pain abated the other pain, and she gave herself to it while refusing to acknowledge it until, all at once, she heard bike wheels treading slowly behind her.

Stopping and fixing her expression, she turned around and saw him. Straddling his bike, leaning on the handlebars, his shoes just barely touching the dirt. He wore that sheep's grin, the sun-glint on this glasses, and from his breast pocket, he pulled out a photograph.


	8. Chapter 8

"Naruto-kun!" she shouts, her hand close to her chest, the other reaching out, her mouth agape, her eyes blank like moons and full of emotion.

Animation sometimes amazes Ruri. That through the use of ink and paper, or through a computer program, somebody can not just draw the form of a character but also add emotion into their eyes and expressions. The voice acting helps, of course.

This is what she thinks about as they sit in the dark stillness of the back of a movie theater. The screen fills their whole vision. Character's shout and make speeches and little remarks that fit in line with the form and movements of their animation which fit in line with the background music and the plot situation and the personal development.

When she watches a movie, she cannot help but separate all the aspects of it and view the film as a set of it's parts rather than something whole. As such, movies always feel fragmented to her, patched together, contrived. And, it doesn't help that they are often so corny and following a pre-designed pattern.

Even the form of film itself seems conducive to this behavior, and so she does not respect filmmaking. Hollywood imperialism does not help and it tarnishes the non-Hollywood movies, like this one.

In short, she is not a fan.

No, this is Shuu's choice. Just as the cafe was Shuu's choice. Even the McDonald's. She feels a bit annoyed at that but decides to let it fade. She knows he chose the cafe because she's going to school in London, and she knows he chose The Last because she reads manga and, for much of middle school, was highly invested in the story of Naruto.

But, as time wore on, and she began to read English fantasy series; the manga industry took a step back in her mind. It became almost ugly, something attached to the younger, less contemplative Ruri. Despite this, seeing the old gang mostly grown up and even older than her now, she feels nostalgia and melancholy, a sense of something lost and something attained. The characters, like her, are getting ready to move on with their lives.

Next to her, Shuu sits quietly. Looking over at him, she sees his face illuminated by the flickering, ever-changing brightness of the screen. He's smiling and staring forward, watching the film, inside of it.

Looking back at the screen, she watches the bright colors and explosions of energy, then looks down at her hands. In the dark, she can only see their outlines in her lap and cannot see her shoes or her shins. Looking straight up, she sees the dusty light of the projector beam. Around her, she hears popcorn munching, soda sipping, wrappers crinkling, the sounds of people trying and failing to eat quietly. The places smells like bodies and cleaning fluid and someone's perfume.

Closing her eyes, she tries to find the source of this restlessness but remains bewildered and frustrated. Giving up, she just watches the screen and lets her thoughts fade and drift. There's something freeing about that, about giving up on observation and contemplation and judgement, even temporarily.

In time, her attention drifts into the movie and for the next hour or so she's there, inside of it, feeling the little tugging emotions, the anticipation of the final fight, the rushing feeling as it happens, the little gasp as the heroine pulls her own sister's eyes out of the face of the villain, and then the tightness in her chest as they kiss as silhouettes in front of a full moon.

She knows that these emotions are manipulated by the film, that she's simply feeling what the director wants her to feel, but she also knows her feelings are genuine or at least coming from a place that still holds the fascinations and investments of her childhood. For a moment, she wants to read the manga all over again.

During the start of the credits, she does not notice how Shuu looks over to her. How he stares at her, seeing her face illuminated by soft, blue-ish light. He watches her lips, how they're tightened and pursed. How the corners twitch once, curling into a small smile. How her gaze is unfettered. How, for once, her expression is just simple and revealing instead of wrought in contrived invulnerability.

A warmth spreads in his chest, a glowing feeling, a sense of pride, and he lets that pride hover, lets himself feel the whole of it before it settles in, becoming faint but constant. The credits roll, the end music drones, and she turns to him.

They both freeze. Her expressions falters and then tenses, a little redness emerges in her cheeks, and, softly, he blinks to wipe his expression clean as the theater lights begin to rise.

"What?" she asks.

"Nothing," he responds. A moment passes before Ruri looks down and sees that, at some point during the film, they both moved their arms onto the armrest. Their forearms passing body warmth, and his thumb and her pinky are curled around each-other.

They freeze again. Another moment passes.

At first, it means nothing, just an image of two arms touching, two fingers linked. Then, it dawns on her, the cultural constructs subdue her, and she rips her arm away, staring at him and trying not to look him in the eyes.

He stifles a laugh, her fist clenches, he tenses, she waits, his laugh stumbles out and erupts into full-fledged, teary-eyed cackling. Heads turn in the audience as people mill about, standing up to leave.

Blushing, she almost smacks him. Then, she doesn't.

Almost ten minutes later, Shuu leans against a wall across the hall from the bathrooms. People pass him in droves, their expressions dazed and blinking, talking in low, disjointed sentences. It is as though they've all been transported here, back into the real world, still stunned and simmering from the places they've been.

Pulling out his cell phone, he flicks it on and feels a thin dread as the light of the screen reminds him of the light of the theater. His eyes sting, he blinks. Feeling heavy, he puts the phone back in his pocket. Coughing into his fist, he stares at the bathroom entrance and waits.

Letting his thoughts drift from the film to Raku's problems to Shinzo Abe to Ruri, he feels a sense of loss and a sense of something attained. Since McDonalds, they haven't discussed societal problems. They're conversations have been light, peppered with little teases, jokes, jabs, usually him saying something to induce a reaction out of her and then her reacting in the way he expects. It's fun, but it feels odd too. All this talking about things outside of themselves, nothing substantial passing between them.

That lingering, unfinished conversation is too massive. There are too many constructs, institutions, variables and nuances to talk about it properly. It sits there, in his gut. Japan, imperialism, americanization, the bombs, the wars, the secret histories. It rests in him and he takes it everywhere, and he assumes everyone else does too. But, how the hell do you talk about everything all at once?

Closing his eyes, he thinks about Kyoko. How she influences people, changes them, or at least makes them feel okay. It must be compassion she carries. But how can compassion rest alongside fright, regret, separation, those remnants of a dark history and the anticipation of a dark future?

But, in the theater, didn't Ruri smile? Didn't he see true emotion in her face with nothing blocking it? Yes, he did. But, was that his own manipulation or was it compassion? How do you extend warmth? How do you fill in the gaps between people?

"What're you thinking about?" Ruri asks. Opening his eyes, he sees she's been standing there awhile. Something drops in his gut. His uncle once told him that's the worst question a girl can ask because _'men always think about sex_.'

But Shuu doesn't care if girls know he thinks about sex. He almost wants them to know. Yet, he still fears that question because mostly he's thinking about his place in the world. Nothing is more frightening than revealing your own vulnerabilities. Maybe that's what his uncle actually meant. Maybe that's actually why boyfriends, fiancés, and husbands hate that question. Maybe men can't even reveal themselves to each-other, let alone to women.

When his mom was in the hospital, he found his father weeping. His father said, in a crumbling voice, ' _Im sorry you had to see me this way. I'd rather die on my white horse than fall off of it. Your mother, she would prefer that, too_.'

After pausing, letting his father's statement cloud the room, Shuu smiled and left.

"Maiko?" Ruri asks, bringing him back to the present.

"Boobies," he lies.

There is a pause, a moment of silence, she watches him.

"Are you a masochist?" she asks, a sort of growl to her tone but a genuineness too. She actually wants to know. For a moment, he loses his words and before he can speak, she laughs. It's a small, dainty sort of laugh, and he feels a tugging in his chest.

"You're so…." He starts, then stops, not knowing what to say. He feels odd and out of place, and so does she. He feels like they should be somewhere else. She starts walking, and he follows. They walk in relative silence as they pass through the ticket counter and out the front doors, into the night.

The streets of Bonyari are brisk but not cold, and they start off for the train station. They pass Union Joe's and the park. There are scant street-lamps in the park, and an orange glow in the windows of the coffee shop. A waitress cleans the window, she sees them and scowls. Shuu almost laughs, then doesn't.

People pass all around them. Cars drive by, their headlights revealing them for a moment before sending them back into darkness. There are street-lamps whose circles of light they pass through. There are birds in trees, making their sounds, dark shapes flitting from branch to branch along with the squirrels that skitter around the trunks and the grasshoppers that bound up and out of the dark grasses.

The night in Bonyari is a series of individual lights; lights from cars and from street-lamps and bus stops, glowing windows and porch-lights, cell phones in the distance. Between all the lights, there is darkness. A dark sidewalk, a dark patch of grass, a dark alleyway, a dark wall or park bench.

Their's is a comfortable silence, punctuated by the sounds of a sleepy city-scape, passing conversations, car engines and the rustling leaves of ginkgo trees. In the distance, they hear the steaming train-whistle.

After a few more minutes of walking, their hands in their pockets, Ruri speaks.

"What did you think of the movie?"

"I liked it," he says after a pause, "It was cute. And the girls were-"

"Stop," she says, and he smiles. They are quiet again, passing through a circle of light from a street-lamp. The light seems to ripple as they pass. Looking up, Shuu sees a black-bird sat at the top, looking out into the dark city. It notices him and flies away.

"What about you?"

"I liked it too," she responds, brushing her bangs out from her face as they pass into the next patch of darkness, "It reminded me of why I liked the series in the first place."

"Why's that?"

"It's warm."

He stops and she keeps walking before stopping too, looking back at him. She stands immersed in darkness, and he stands at the very edge of lamp-light. Her eyebrow raising, then he starts walking again, catching up. The train station emerges several blocks away. The platform is full of light and people.

"What was that?" she asks, glancing at him.

"What do you mean by warm?"

"I mean, the people in it. The characters, I guess, Konoha. Even though it's a place full of child soldiers and orphans and secret, hidden massacres, terrible violence. It's somehow still warm, the way the characters interact with each-other."

"Sasuke's not all that warm."

"No, not really. But, Naruto is. He's warm. It was nice."

She doesn't feel satisfied by this explanation because she doesn't like to work in abstractions. Instead she thinks about what is defined, has shape, is proven. When she sees a crowd of people, she imagines them as reactions to their society or their evolution. As such, when talking about the feeling of compassion and togetherness, it's difficult because there is no real measurement for that, no set place where it comes from. She wants to think of compassion as a set of chemical reactions in the brain, but that does not seem to speak enough truth.

"It was good," she continues, "I mean, well-"

"I get it," he responds. They are quiet as they pass under another street-lamp.

"Thanks for taking me," she says, surprised at herself. She didn't mean to say it, but then she said it. She meant it.

"Sure," he says, stretching as they walk, staring ahead. A dense silence settles in, made more dense by the darkness. The next streetlamp is several meters away, there are no people are cars nearby. They feel each-other's presence, they hear the sounds of each-other's footsteps, and smell the scent of each-other's clothing and bodies.

"Hey," he says, looking down at her feet as they walk.

"What?"

"Nothing," he says, then pauses, "I was just thinking that Naruto would probably make a better leader than Abe."

She laughs.


	9. Chapter 9

"You received your acceptance letter?!"

They're standing on the train platform, near the steps down to the street. The platform is wet from last night's rain and the sky is still gray and cloudy. It's the end of morning commute and people move past them with a sense of desperation as the workweek begins.

There are a few other students rushing by, down the steps, late for school. And there are a few salarymen doing the same, with their suits and their briefcases. The rest of the people around just lounge on the benches or walk slowly to their part-time jobs, holding coffees or teas, listening to music in their earbuds.

It is Monday, and so there is a stiffness to people's expressions and a resignment to the sounds of bike wheels treading asphalt, hurried footsteps, lingering cell phone conversations, and the steaming, whistling, lurching, exhaling train.

Nodding, her expression as blasé as ever, Ruri pulls out the thick and lumpy envelope. Taking it, Shuu reads the words out front: Oxford University of Cambridge. He turns it over in his hands, feeling the contours and weight. It hits him that he will never receive anything like this from any college. The trade schools he applied to will just email him or send him a smaller, cheaper letter.

"You didn't open it yet?"

"I don't need to," she responds, her breath smelling like coffee, "They also emailed me. And called me. And texted me. And tweeted me. And sent me messages on Facebook and my forums. And, somehow, they faxed my mom at her work.

"Wow. Is it a scholarship? Full ride?"

She nods.

Whooping loudly, Shuu prepares to rally the troops in celebration before remembering they are not in the classroom. The few passerbys shoot him wary looks. He pauses, arms raised, smiling his sheep's smile. Then, he whoops anyway, chanting something like a school-song. Ruri just stands there and takes it.

"What are you doing?" she eventually asks, all derision.

Going quiet, he leans forward and pats her on the head, saying, "Well done, young grasshopper. I've taught you all that I can. Please, step over my corpse to a better tomorrow."

"Shut up."

Turning away, she starts down the steps but then stops and looks up at the sky. There is a chill and pressure in the air, and the clouds are clumped together, dark and forceful and pregnant with rain. They hear some rumble in the distance and the air smells like the sea.

"Hey," she says, "Follow me. I have a place to show you."

"Skipping class? Are we skipping class?!" he asks, feigning outrage. Grumbling as though reconsidering, she walks off in a new direction, passing through the whole of the platform towards the empty train-tracks. Bounding after, he follows.

Crossing the tracks they continue on through streets still stricken with rain, stepping over puddles and avoiding the long, gray streams of rainwater still running into gutters. The rain-scent lingers, that humid, damp smell that releases a sense of calm in both of them.

There is something good about the quiet of after-rain and about the sight of dripping shingles. Neither realize it, but as children they both had the tendency to sit at the window during rain-storms and just watch the torrential grayness, the almost violent nature of heavy rain, and listen to the sounds of it pelting the roof and the windows.

When Shuu was younger, he believed in God and thought that Jesus was the Sun since, in English, they always called him "The Son." As such, when it rained, he thought that Jesus could not see him and this ignited a special curiosity. He felt powerful during the rain, as if entrusted to keep an eye on himself. He'd sit at the window-sill and just watch. Then, in sixth grade, when his mom got meningitis, he stopped believing in God. He realized the sun was just the sun and rain was just rain. He felt lied to, but that trust he felt during a rain-storm never vanished. He separated from himself, began smiling false smiles, and pretended not to care about his mom. Even to Raku, he lied. Even to his dad, and his sisters, and his uncle. He tried not to visit her in the hospital. He always hid when the others prepared to leave. It rained that day. He watched it fall. He felt calm and trusted, alone, safe.

"I started reading a different book," he says, turning the memories away.

"What's that?"

"Karl Ove Knaussgard? You read him, or heard about him?"

"Sure," she says, "Yeah. His translator is well-reputed."

"I read his book about angels awhile ago, like last year, I think it was. Really great, but I didn't much like the way it ended, I guess. Maybe if I ran into more seagulls growing up I'd appreciate it better. But, now I'm reading that set of memoirs he's writing."

"The ones titled after Hitler's book, you mean."

"Yep, those ones."

"I've heard it's a masterpiece."

"Seems like it, so far," hoisting his bag as the streets begin to ascend.

"He writes about life, too, right? About life unfolding from origami into just paper."

"Yeah. I guess so."

This part of Bonyari was built along a massive set of hills. People built here first, before the lower-lands, because it served them well during floods and as a high-point to watch for intruders. Despite this geographical advantage, the neighborhoods up here are known for their poorly paved roads, their graffiti splattered fences and walls, and their corner-stores with caged windows. Ruri used to live up this way, before her family moved to a nicer house just prior to middle school. Her great-grandfather paid the mortgage.

Historically, the peasants lived at the base of the hills because the land was better for farming, although sometimes the crops could get washed away by flooding. It was only as the populations grew and feudalism was abandoned and a sewage system was introduced that the wealth distribution changed. Those with money began living down in the lower-lands, now that the rain just collected in the sewers, pushing those without up into the hills. Even now, there are remnants of the old dynamics dotted about the upper neighborhoods. Several shrines still sit in the nooks and crannies of alleys and side-streets, although most of now desecrated with graffiti and serve as common meeting-points for drug deals and delinquents. Because of the perceived danger, and other social reasons, the national housing standards are not often matched, with leaky pipes, a lack of hot water, and cold air getting through the windows and walls. Even though the people living in the hills are poor, and often immigrants of a few generations back, many of the tenements and housing in the hills is owned by the older families that once lived up there, generations ago, like the Ichijou family.

As they ascend, they notice the potholes in the streets and the cages over corner store windows. Ruri decides to keep talking about literature.

"So. Do you think it speaks to truths?"

"What?" he asks.

"The Ove memoir."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it does. Not, not all the time. Just the cadence of living, I think. Human stuff."

"Human stuff."

"Yeah."

The streets are mostly empty in the late morning. Most people at work or school or in their homes as the next rain approaches. They pass two cats pilfering a garbage can in an alley. They pause to watch. Their fur matted wet, their tiny, wheezing mews, and that wild fear in their bright eyes as they sense movement deeper in the alley.

"I was going to read his debut novel," Ruri says, "But after I read about _him_ I decided it wasn't worth it, really. Not that he's a really bad person, or anything. Just, I don't know. It didn't seem worth my time, anymore."

"Yeah, well, that's understandable, I think. Still a great writer."

"And his translator is still great, too."

They pass an old woman taking a slow, hobbling walk with her gnarled cane. She does not look at them as they pass, her eyes are cloudy and splintered with cuticles, her body seems to shake as she moves, she is wrapped in cloth and as seems to mutter something their way but nobody stops walking.

"I think I prefer Terry Tempest Williams, to him," she says.

"Who?"

"She's a writer, from America, and a Mormon. Her best book is called Refuge, about her mother's cancer and some water-diversion project the state government tried to introduce on Salt Lake because the water levels were flooding the roads."

"What was the project?"

"Well, they funded a massive pipeline, I guess you could call it, to funnel the water away. It all just felt so absurd. The Great Salt Lake's water line ebbs and flows, naturally, and the people who lived there before ebbed and flowed with it. But then, the white settlers moved in and built immobile housing, and then roads, and obviously became flooded. They built something unnatural, that, well, it's like trying to fit a star-shaped block into a square shaped hole. In the end, they just try to change the square shape into a star shape to match the block they shoved in. Anyway, It's a memoir."

"So, it actually happened?"

"Yeah. It's honest. It's an honest memoir."

They pass bits of paper and cardboard, newspaper fold-outs, wrappers of candy and convenience store items. There are smashed soda cans littering the streets. The garbage is pushed up against walls and curbs, soggy wet with the draining rainwater. A wind blows through an alley, tossing bits of paper and plastic into the street where it catches in the drainwater.

"Who else?" she asks.

"Who else?"

"Which other writers do you like, lately, or whenever."

"Well, I'm not sur-"

A police car passes slowly by, it's headlights bright and stinging. The officer watches them, sees their school uniforms, but he moves on and Ruri scoffs. They are quiet until the car turns the next corner.

"I don't know why," Ruri starts, "But I like Southern Gothic. Do you know what that is?"

"Not really, I've heard of it."

"It was, or maybe still is, I guess, an American writing movement. Faulkner, O'Connor, they were the headliners. Usually it depicts small, southern towns in the United States, during Jim Crow. _To Kill A Mockingbird_ fits in there, too. Have you heard of _The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter_?"

"Nope, what's that? Oh, and did you read the sequel, yet?"

"It hasn't been translated. And, I don't really want to, but maybe I will anyway. But, _Lonely Hunter_ is a book in that style, Southern Gothic. It was written by a nineteen year old, I think, or maybe she was seventeen."

"Wow."

"Yeah. For awhile, she lived in a writer's commune in New York. The same one Philip Roth lived in, actually. But, she eventually killed herself."

"It happens, you hear about that, about writers killing themselves."

"Probably as often as everyone else."

"Maybe. Let's see… Hemingway, Plath, I don't know any others, actually. But, a bunch drank themselves to death! Kerouac, Poe, um-"

"Let's not list it. I don't want to list it."

"Okay."

Mostly, they pass the empty space. That sense of ghostliness that after-rain brings to an impoverished neighborhood. Everything is dim. Every shadow is pale. Every light is gray. There are some shops open, corner-stores, a tattoo parlor, a barber shop. Shuu recognizes someone lingering in a window. They nod at one another. Ruri casts a glance and purses her lips.

"What was that?" she asks.

"Raku's family," he responds. That's right, it hits her that his family is like that. His family is tattooed and carries guns and knives. They kill people, sometimes. The drugs they funnel keep the poor communities afloat. But, those same drugs keep the poor communities impoverished. It's a self sustained system of ignorance and oppression. And, she knows it. It's like she has some piece of knowledge the others don't. She feels something like delight and doesn't understand why.

"Maya Angelou never killed herself," she mutters, "She never drank herself to death, either. Neither did Kurt Vonnegut."

"Hey! By the way, I heard Toni Morrison said, in an interview, that she only thinks about her regrets, now."

"She did so much good."

Above them, the clouds are fat and trembling. A car passes by, mist sputtering out from under it's wheels. They trudge upwards, the street still ascending. Short, narrow houses line both sides of the road, ramshackle porches, tinkling wind-chimes, potted peonies and hastas. The air is cold and thin and has the feeling of being windless despite several curt breezes blowing at porches and newspapers. A single raindrop hits the top of Shuu's head. He stops walking.

"Let me carry your bag," he offers. She stops and looks back at him. The bag bulges against her waist, knocking her with every step. Clutching the shoulder-strap, she looks away.

"Hey-"

"Stop it," she says, "I am an athlete."

"Yeah, but you're-"

"What?"

"I don't know," he says, realization dawning. They are quiet. The rain begins slowly, as if waking up, small drizzles, almost like mist. Ruri starts walking again, then stops and looks around, then starts again. This happens a few times, and Shuu just slowly follows. Eventually, she stops completely, looking off down an alley.

"Is it that way?" he asks. She looks at him, and he sees a lecture in her face. He resigns himself, takes off his glasses, and tries to clean them on his shirt but his shirt is misty-wet.

"I carry my bag because I want to," she says, deciding not to feel silly about her conviction, "And I carry every book every day because I want to. My body is small, and I'm a gir-" she hesitates, "-woman. It represents my pride."

He doesn't say anything and lets his expression waver. He knows she's serious, and he knows that if he doesn't understand they will go back down the hill and end up in their classroom. Their substitute teacher would write them up for being late. He almost laughs when he realizes he doesn't want to get written up.

"Do you understand?"

"I understand pride," he says, holding the strap of his own bag. The rain stops again. The air is humid and heavy.

"Do you understand _my_ pride?"

"No," he admits.

She looks down at their feet. The street is empty and silent except for the low rumbling in the sky. Their skin is sticky with sweat and humidity, their clothes hang heavy on their bodies, their glasses are fogged so they both take them off and wipe them clear.

"Can you?" she asks, peering at him. Knowing that if he lies it is over and knowing that if he can't it's almost over, he hesitates.

"I-" he starts, trying to find the words, noting the sudden separation between them and yet this equally sudden possibility of closeness.

It's as though they stand on two opposing plains, staring at each-other, and the right words could bring these plains together. He searches and decides to be warm. He doesn't know how to be warm and he doesn't understand people who are warm. Kyoko, his uncle, his mother. Even Raku and Yui. He doesn't understand them, what it means to be like the sun, what it means to reach out and touch somebody's shoulder or cheek or hair-line and feel them relax. He is a liar, he knows, and a manipulator, and yet he forgives himself for just a desperate moment.

Looking up, he notices the contours of the pregnant clouds, and he smiles a sad, small smile. Beyond this moment is a rainstorm, and they will be caught in it no matter what he says.

"I cant yet," he admits, and her expression goes flat.

"Oh."

"But, one day, if you explain it to me. This is - this is part of that unfinished conversation, isn' t it? This is a huge part of it, about why you feel like an island on an island, right?"

She glances up at him, mouth open. He hit on something, and for the first time in her memory, he spoke a real truth. Not just a half-truth, or some sort of truth with a sense of direction or intention. But this truth was unfiltered, placed in front of her without clothing. Her heartbeat quickens. So does his.

Is that was it's all about? Shinzo Abe, Japan, women. Words appear in his mind, bright and angry like something ignored; Ecofeminism, Ethics of Care, Ubuntu; when did he learn anything? There is too much to learn, there is too much to know and discuss. You can fill yourself with knowledge, but you cannot reach compassion without - something more than knowledge.

If intimacy exists in the personal, and empathy exists in the extra-personal, than this something exists in both, in everything good far from you and close to you. It's similar to compassion, but it's maybe more sustaining than that. Maybe it loses power after being named. Well, whatever the something should or could be called, Shuu is certain it can save the world.

"You know," he says despite himself, afraid of being patriarchal and yet afraid of nothing, "You know you won't find peace at Oxford, right?"

"Yes, I know. But I will find good teachers and a whole country of English speakers. I will learn a lot," she responds, her initial surprise dwindling as she realizes just how far he is from understanding.

He may be thoughtful, inquisitive, observational, critical, humorous, contemplative - but still he is a boy. Perhaps, in gleaming moments he can touch on it and in that way he's already miles ahead of any other boy she knows. Her thoughts clutter, she sighs and looks towards the alley and realizes she doesn't know anything either.

"But- " he starts, wanting tell her what he's learned. Wanting to say all the bright and angry ideals, phrases and abstractions floating about his mind. But, is that warmth? He closes his mouth. It's better to listen.

"I want to go to Oxford so I can forget everything I know so I can learn everything again," she tells him, "I want to go to Oxford so I can articulate what I know now, and what I don't know yet. I can ramble about Japan, pride, feminism, but it stills feels like there's just - I don't know - there's just something far from me I haven't seen yet. There are many things like that, I think. I don't know anything, anymore. I want to think in English, for awhile. There is…."

"….Too much to say," he finishes. She nods. How do we talk about everything all at once? How do we exude warmth? How do we influence and accept influence, how do we remain vulnerable?

"So," Shuu says, watching her, having no answers, "When you get back, you're going to explain it to me? Right?"

Looking back at him, she sees the sifting sands of his expression, the waiting look, the struggle to accept that which he cannot know yet. And, she nods. He smiles. His smile is sad like the rain. The sky groans. The rain-mist returns. They both feel something tight and heavy in their chests, a sense of dread and relief.

"But, this is different from novelists and manga or whatever," she continues, re-adjusting her bag-strap, "How can I explain everything? How can I explain something I can't fully grasp?"

"Over time," he responds, and she flinches, considers, and looks at the sky. The street is gray and misty, the fat clouds stare down at them. Lunging forward, she grabs his hand and leads him across the street and through the alley. The alley is dark and dank, their footsteps echo, their hands are clammy and cold. They emerge out the other side to a sort of balcony that looks out on the whole of Bonyari. She leads him to the wet railing and the whole town lies below them, spreading out like a giant fan behind the drizzly mist. All the little roofs and tenements, it looks like a toy town.

The way the houses lie in clusters, the grid-pattern of the streets, the tail-lights and head-lights of cars roaming like ants. The lights of street-lamps and windows, tiny orange dots in the mess of everything. There is downtown with all it's one-block parks and novelty shops, the bright marquee of the movie theater, the low and flat roofs of buildings with satellite dishes and A/C units and clouds of steam wallowing out from ventilation shafts. There is their school lying low and dreary, the parking-lots and courtyards are empty of people, the ginkgo and juniper trees wave furiously in the winds. Several blocks away sits their old middle school with the wet and empty playground full of brightly-colored slides and the wind blowing the swings. Then, there is the platform, vast and gray concrete, and the train moving slowly out from the station. Far out, just barely visible in they misty rain, they see the long highway stretching out of town, the foggy expanse of flat-land and power-lines.

They are silent, their hands becoming warm together, their glasses misting until they can't see anything anymore. They both let go so they can clean them, and they both feel that open-faced vulnerability in their naked faces. They catch each-other glancing at each-other, the world blurry and mystical.

"I showed Kosaki this place after we became friends," she says, putting her glasses back on, "Back in middle school. I used to live near here, and came to this spot almost every-day to think, or maybe to not think. It's a little too beautiful to think in front of, sometimes."

"It's nice," is all he says back, putting his on too. They see each-other with clarity, the redness of their noses from the cold, the contours of their chins and cheekbones, the way their glasses frame their faces, the way their eyes waver, the way their hair is matted down by accumulated drizzle.

In a quick, spontaneous movement, he leans forward and down, pulling her towards him. As their lips meet, they do not think. In the first moment, the world becomes molasses, sweet and slow-moving.

In the second moment, they part and the world returns to what it was, the sky fat with rain, the town splayed out before them, the warmth of each-other's bodies.

They are caught in that after-kiss moment of vulnerability, open-mouthed, open-eyed, unable to manufacture an expression. It is a place of buzzing quiet. She tries to speak, and a meaningless noise comes out. She tries to feel anger, but there is only a small and growing sense of warmth. He sees this in the shifting shapes in her eyes, and his mouth twitches into a smile.

"What now…."

"I don't-" and her phone jingles. Pulling it out, she sees it's a message from Kosaki. Shuu watches her as she reads it, her eyes darting in tiny movements. He smiles, his lips feel light, his face feels hot, his body feels like he just took off a backpack. There is a certain ethereal quality to the situation, the way the wind howls in the alley, the way the town looks like a set of toys or a map. Even the straight edge of the railing, how battered it is with rain, and the soundlessness of this canopy. The way her face looks right now, how it looks the exact same as a moment ago except for the faint blushing, and the exact same as a year ago except for some knowledge in her eyes, and yet, there is also something child-like within her face, as if they both became small.

Feeling exposed, he shivers and looks up, a raindrop hits his forehead. He looks down, some joy bursts in his chest.

"They're coming back. Tomorrow afternoon they'll be here, at the train station," she says quietly, looking back up at him, noticing his glasses are off center.

"Did she say - uh - who won?" he asks, feeling an old rhythm return, feeling his sheep's grin waver beneath his current, truthful expression, and feeling that ticking desire to mess with her.

"No."

"Oh."

The sky breaks, the rain falls.


	10. Chapter 10

In a nearly empty classroom, the cloudy light of afternoon casts thin, angled shadows through the windowpanes. Sitting at a desk near the door, Ruri writes in English. The writing is slow and somewhat choppy, but she does not need to think too much. The words just appear on the page as if by magic. To her, that is the only sound in the classroom, the sound of pen scratching paper. She does not notice the hum of the computer, or the shouts of the baseball game outside, or the footsteps of someone passing by the door. She just writes. English appears in her mind, travels to her hands and through the conduit of the pen onto the paper, taking form in lines of black ink.

In time, she feels a shift in her brain, a setting in of knowledge, and she does not notice when he appears in the doorway. Leaning against the doorframe, he watches her write, the way her head is bent forward, the way her hair is wet with pool-water and smells like chlorine. Grinning, he looks up at the ceiling and hears the hum of air vents behind the tiles. There is something about the hidden, working systems behind walls and ceilings and people and institutions, there is something both scary and comforting about that.

All around him, things move. Systems function in the odd, gear-like, grinding, unflattering way they do. Nations jostle for position. People get on and off the train. The sky darkens and fattens and drops it's rain and clears up again.

Ruri's hand moves quickly. The sound of scribbling, the occasional licking of the pen-tip, her small knuckles working and the tendons shifting beneath her skin. Time moves, she stops, becomes still, staring at the paper, holding the pen against the page and then lifting it away. He grins, and she coughs into her fist, looks at him, her expression devoid of anything except an unsubtle annoyance.

"Whatchoo writing, a love letter? You writin' 'bout looooove?!," he asks, smiling his sheep's smile. He sees the corner of her lip twitch.

"No."

He doesn't say anything back, and for a moment they just watch each-other. Then, she stands up, slinging her bag against her torso, the strap cutting into her clavicle, the bag itself bulging and rock-like against her small waist. In it, she deposits the notebook and the pen and closes the flap. Then, she looks at him.

"They're probably waiting," she says as she strides past him, her shoulder brushing against his elbow. Pausing a moment, he smiles at the doorframe, noticing the color of the paint and the steady grain of the wood. Her footsteps recede down the hallway, clacking against the tiles. Hearing them go silent, he glances back at the empty classroom before jogging to catch up.


End file.
